


A Room for the Night

by Zordosia (orphan_account)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abusive Parents, Burr doesn't actually do anything but is generally awful to Maria, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, The Reynolds Women Deserving Better, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 11:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9120805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Zordosia
Summary: Mr. Burr was her mother's divorce lawyer. James wasn't thrilled about her mother having a divorce lawyer in the first place, much less Mr. Burr. When they had to leave in a hurry, Mr. Burr was kind enough to offer to let them stay at his place.





	

    Mr. Burr told her that it wasn’t her fault her parents were getting divorced. Susan imagined that that line worked quite well on the young children of frigidly loveless marriages that died natural deaths, the comfortable families that made up most of Mr. Burr’s clients. But it did not help her very much, because she had seen the horror in her mother’s eyes at her bloody lip. Susan knew that she was the reason her parents were getting divorced. She was not afraid of being unloved, she was afraid of her mother loving her more than she loved herself.  
  
    “This will be fun,” Theodosia said as she led Susan to her room. She had grabbed Susan’s duffel bag from her at the door, and kept a perfect smile plastered to her face the whole time. “I haven’t had a sleepover in ages.” Susan gave Theodosia a smile of her own, a very poor imitation, and looked around the room. The walls were lavender, her bed was wrought iron, her furniture was painted white. There was a bookshelf with large text books on the bottom and trophies in the middle and pictures of Theodosia, Mr. Burr, and a woman who must have been her mother on the top. Everything was neatly put away, except for an incongruously shiny nylon sleeping bag stretched out on the shag carpet. Susan thought back to her own room back home, dirty clothes scattered everywhere and books piled up on the floor, and felt deeply uncomfortable.  
  
    Theodosia was perched on her bed, smiling in the same perfect way. “Do you want to brush your teeth and change? I put spare stuff in the bathroom for you.” Susan nodded. “It’s across the living room, on the left.” Susan nodded, gave her another meager smile, and left.  
  
    She brushed her teeth studiously avoiding her reflection in the mirror, focusing instead on Theodosia’s extensive collection of brushes, the unobtainable names on her cosmetics, the Fisk Guide to Colleges that was apparently her bathroom reading. She was heading back to the bedroom when she heard her mother’s voice coming from the guest bedroom. She couldn’t help herself, she leaned against the wall next to the door and listened.  
  
    “My brother is coming up to the apartment this weekend,” her mother said. “He’ll be able to my valuables, some of the cash I hid. We’ll be out of here by then.”  
  
    “You can stay here as long as you’d like,” Mr. Burr said, which was an extravagant lie even for him. Susan could just picture the practiced grateful expression on her mother’s face.  
  
    “Thank you, but I’m sure we’ll be out of here by then.” Susan heard bed springs creak and she tensed.  
  
    “I’m so sorry you had to go through this, Maria. I could take your mind off things, if you want.”  
  
    She could kick down the door, yell at him to leave her mother alone, she could call him a bastard, she could just knock on the door and pretend she wanted to talk to her mom alone, she could do anything but remain frozen in place crouched on the outside.  
  
    “Thank you, but I’m very tired. I’m sorry, I’d just like to be alone right now, Aaron.”  
  
    There was a pause and the bed springs creaked again. “Of course. I just wanted you to know that I’m here for you.”  
  
    “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.” Susan moved back to the bathroom as quickly as possible, but she waited to make sure Mr. Burr left.  
  
    Theodosia was in her pajamas, writing in the margins of some book, when Susan came back. She set the book down carefully. “So, Susan, I just wanted to let you know, I’m here if you need to talk about anything…”  
  
    Now her smile had changed a bit, she had added creases around the eyes, trying her best to convey poorly concealed pity. Susan should have known better than to try to match her. “Thank you,” Susan said. Theodosia waited. “I’m pretty tired,” Susan said. “Do you mind if we talk tomorrow?”  
  
    “Of course!” Susan tried not to flinch at the eagerness in her voice, crawled into her sleeping bag, and closed her eyes, trying to remain perfectly still until the scratching of Theodosia’s pen on the paper resumed. Eventually, she drifted off.  
  
    She woke several times in the middle of the night, to the unfamiliar noises of the building, and when she woke to the beginnings of the sunrise she got up, relieved to see that Theodosia was still asleep. Mr. Burr was in the kitchen, though, when Susan walked in. He looked up from his phone and Susan almost felt like laughing, his salesman’s smile looked so out of place when the man was wearing pajamas instead of a suit. “What would you like for breakfast, Susan?”  
  
    “Um. Toast?” She moved towards the counter but Burr waved her down and so she sat at the table awkwardly, watching him make her breakfast.  
  
    “Thank you,” she said. He nodded and sat down across from her. He had the same kind of focused look on his face that he did in court. She stared at her plate and felt relieved when he finally cleared his throat.  
  
    “Your mother told me what happened.” Susan was used to this kind of confrontation, she had practice in maintaining the same steady rate of bite, chew, chew, swallow, kept her gaze fixed to the plate, so that she would have no tell, nothing for Burr to react to.  
  
    “I want you to know that there are… resources. Professional resources.” He must have been testing her. He must have been trying to make her crack. That would be the only reason Mr. Burr, who had waved his fee, who was putting up Susan right now because her mother couldn’t afford a hotel, would suggest something as luxurious as therapy to her.  
  
    And she must have cracked because Mr. Burr sighed. “I just… don’t want you to pick up… bad habits, Susan.” She could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “It is… very easy, in situations like this, to go looking for easy answers. Easy things to make you feel better. And there are people who would offer you that who… do not have your best interests in mind.”  
  
    Susan closed her fat lip and the bread felt like a lead ball in her mouth. _I know you people don’t have the best impulse control, do you? I don’t want you to end up getting whored out to every politician in the state._  
  
   _I don’t want you whoring yourself out to…_ “Are you telling my mother the same thing, Mr. Burr?” she asked.  
  
    The fear replaced the anger so quickly that she could not even get any satisfaction from the look on Mr. Burr’s face. She picked up her toast and looked back down at the plate, because if she offered him a chance to pretend nothing had happened maybe he would take.  
  
    And Mr. Burr did, and that could have been enough to make her like him. She finished her toast and put the plate in the dishwasher and walked to the guest bedroom.  
  
    It was still dark and her mother was snoring softly. Susan hesitated in the door frame, she really should let her mother sleep in, but maybe she wouldn’t notice Susan climbing into bed with her.  
  
    She did, of course, and jerked upright, wide-eyed, in a way that made Susan feel guilty and sick. But her face got all soft when she saw Susan, and she pulled her up next to her and Susan closed her eyes and pretended they were in her bedroom back home, a year or two ago.  
  
    “You sleep alright, honey?” Susan nodded but her mother spoke the same language she did, so it was no use. She sighed. “We’ll be out of here soon, baby. I promise. We’ll be at your uncle’s.” Her uncle was awful, but he had never been awful to Susan or her mother, so that was something. “It’s going to be okay.”  
  
    “I know it is, mom.” Her mother hummed and stroked her hair.  
  
    “How are you and Theodosia getting along?”  
  
    “Good. She’s really nice.”  
  
    Her mother sighed again. “She’s had a rough time too, recently. I think you girls would be good for each other.”  
  
    “Yeah, we could form a Sad Girl’s Club or something.” Her mother poked her in the ribs and they both giggled.  
  
    “I just mean she might understand.” Susan thought about Theodosia’s perfect room and perfect smile, and she thought about Mr. Burr, and she doubted Theodosia would understand. She thought about Mr. Burr some more and decided understanding was overrated.  
  
    “I’ll be okay, mom,” she said. 

    "I know," her mother said. She pulled her tight and they lay there, tuning out the noise from the outside world together. Her mother hadn’t given her anything perfect, but this was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from a suggestion from @runawayforthesummer for a Theo A/Angie H thing around this concept, so I might try to do that later, or try to convince her to write that. Either way, thanks Chelsea!
> 
> I'm at theoroark on tumblr if you want to reach me there.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this, and any comments or kudos would mean the world to me!


End file.
